A wide variety of electrical connectors are provided with various means for locking or retaining the terminals of a connector within the connector housing. Often, terminals are inserted into cavities in the housing and mechanisms such as cantilevered spring arms are provided for snapping behind shoulders of the housing. This arrangement locks the terminals in the housing and prevents the terminals from backing out of the housing, such as when pulling stresses are exerted on leads terminated to the terminals.
However, simple insertion of the terminals into the cavities in the connector housing does not assure that the terminals are properly positioned and locked in place. Therefore, a variety of devices have been designed to assure the proper or full positioning of the terminals. Many such devices incorporate a pivoted member integrally molded with the connector housing, as by a living hinge, whereby the member is pivoted from an open position to allow the terminals to be inserted into the housing cavities and a closed position either biasing the terminals toward their fully inserted positions or simply to ensure that the terminals are properly positioned. In other words, if one or more terminals are not fully inserted into their respective cavities, the positioning assurance member cannot be closed. Such pivoted devices have the advantage of being easy to manipulate and being positionally accurate.
Various problems have been encountered with such integrally molded hinged devices. The living hinges must be relatively thin in order to provide ease of pivoting movement, but the thin hinges may break when exposed to excessive stresses. In addition, by molding a positioning assurance device as an integral part of the connector housing, the overall envelope of the connector often is made excessively bulky.
This invention is directed to solving the above problems by providing a terminal positioning assurance device which is independent of the connector housing yet provides the advantages of a pivoted member.